The moment reports about the missing (crashed) EgyptAir flight started to pour in, I was busy checking different travel websites for a possible trip later this summer. Needless to say, I stopped searching!
I have been a frequent traveler but I have always felt butterflies in my stomach before every flight no matter whether long or short.
It is not that I am afraid to board an airplane and I am not anxious to the point that I don’t enjoy the trip but I like to put things in their proper perspective. Just imagine boarding a jet that will soon take off and remain floating in the air several thousand feet in the sky for hours. It is said that getting into a plane is far safer than traveling on road by car. I don’t agree at all.
Safety, without doubt, is the first thing that comes to the mind whenever we decide to move from one point to another. We want such a trip to be convenient, comfortable and safe. At the first glance, traveling by car would always seem to be the safest option. You would feel more in control being the driver behind the wheel; it is more convenient, as you can decide when to move and when to stop.
However, when it to comes to logic, it is an entirely different story. The commercial aviation industry is the most monitored, scrutinized and investigated form of transportation available. For any single flight between two points, there are tens of personnel working on it. Not only crew and maintenance, but the staff checking you in, carrying your luggage, checking you at the gates, and those controlling the flight throughout its cruise in different controlling towers all over the world. For that, saying that getting on a plane is safer than getting on a car is statically accurate, the numbers back it up.
In a famous research on the commercial flight safety that took place between 1975 and 1994 by Dr. Arnold Barnett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he found that the death risk per flight was one in seven million, in other words, if you did fly for everyday in your life, probability indicates that it would take you 19,000 years before you would become a victim of a fatal accident. And we better notice that the airplanes safety technologies have hugely developed since 1994.
Moreover, although it might feel otherwise with all the air disasters we have witnessed during the past couple of years.
In 2014, there were 990 fatalities caused by 21 flights, while in 2015, the number of accidents decreased to 560 caused by 16 flights. According to Flightglobal, an aviation industry analyst, there was an accident rate of just one in 5 million flights during 2015, the lowest figure on record as reported by the Telegraph.
For that, logically, rationally, and statically, air travel is by the far the safest option to travel. The problem, however, is that we do not tend to think logically about such matters. Hearing about air travel disasters, following the news with images of devastated families waiting for news about their missing loved ones is always emotional. Air accidents appear dangerous because it is hard to think that we would survive one if it ever happened; it is an irrational fear based on personal emotions and expectations.
Now with the summer knocking on the door, leave all your fears behind and go for it. No matter what you think, air travel is the safest transportation option out there (believe it or not, it is even safer than riding a bicycle). It is also good to keep in mind that our national carrier, despite its other shortcomings, and many other airlines in the gulf region rank among the safest airlines of the world.
I have been a frequent traveler but I have always felt butterflies in my stomach before every flight no matter whether long or short.
It is not that I am afraid to board an airplane and I am not anxious to the point that I don’t enjoy the trip but I like to put things in their proper perspective. Just imagine boarding a jet that will soon take off and remain floating in the air several thousand feet in the sky for hours. It is said that getting into a plane is far safer than traveling on road by car. I don’t agree at all.
Safety, without doubt, is the first thing that comes to the mind whenever we decide to move from one point to another. We want such a trip to be convenient, comfortable and safe. At the first glance, traveling by car would always seem to be the safest option. You would feel more in control being the driver behind the wheel; it is more convenient, as you can decide when to move and when to stop.
However, when it to comes to logic, it is an entirely different story. The commercial aviation industry is the most monitored, scrutinized and investigated form of transportation available. For any single flight between two points, there are tens of personnel working on it. Not only crew and maintenance, but the staff checking you in, carrying your luggage, checking you at the gates, and those controlling the flight throughout its cruise in different controlling towers all over the world. For that, saying that getting on a plane is safer than getting on a car is statically accurate, the numbers back it up.
In a famous research on the commercial flight safety that took place between 1975 and 1994 by Dr. Arnold Barnett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he found that the death risk per flight was one in seven million, in other words, if you did fly for everyday in your life, probability indicates that it would take you 19,000 years before you would become a victim of a fatal accident. And we better notice that the airplanes safety technologies have hugely developed since 1994.
Moreover, although it might feel otherwise with all the air disasters we have witnessed during the past couple of years.
In 2014, there were 990 fatalities caused by 21 flights, while in 2015, the number of accidents decreased to 560 caused by 16 flights. According to Flightglobal, an aviation industry analyst, there was an accident rate of just one in 5 million flights during 2015, the lowest figure on record as reported by the Telegraph.
For that, logically, rationally, and statically, air travel is by the far the safest option to travel. The problem, however, is that we do not tend to think logically about such matters. Hearing about air travel disasters, following the news with images of devastated families waiting for news about their missing loved ones is always emotional. Air accidents appear dangerous because it is hard to think that we would survive one if it ever happened; it is an irrational fear based on personal emotions and expectations.
Now with the summer knocking on the door, leave all your fears behind and go for it. No matter what you think, air travel is the safest transportation option out there (believe it or not, it is even safer than riding a bicycle). It is also good to keep in mind that our national carrier, despite its other shortcomings, and many other airlines in the gulf region rank among the safest airlines of the world.
